Controls that expedite first-passage times in disordered systems.

Area of Science:

• Statistical Physics
• Complex Systems

Background:

• Disordered systems with scale invariance exhibit long trapping times, slowing transport.
• Fat-tailed distributions characterize these long trapping times in energy or entropic traps.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate first-passage time statistics in biased processes within disordered systems.
• Apply the big-jump principle to understand the influence of maximum trapping times on transport.

Main Methods:

• Statistical analysis of first-passage times.
• Application of the big-jump principle to identify dominant trapping events.
• Modeling biased transport in various disordered systems.

Main Results:

• The maximum trapping time critically influences first-passage time statistics.
• Removing the maximum trapping time dramatically accelerates transport, especially as disorder increases.
• Homogeneous systems show negligible improvement upon removal, unlike disordered systems.

Conclusions:

• Transport in strongly disordered systems can be significantly expedited by removing dominant trapping events.
• Exploiting scale invariance provides a theoretical basis for enhancing conductance in poorly conducting systems.
• Targeting and removing bottlenecks is a more effective strategy in disordered systems than in homogeneous ones.